What's the time Mr Wolfe?

When Bean and I took a lovely trip into Brighton last weekend on Sunday we treated outselves to a coffee and biscuit in Mr Wolfe.

Before we left on Sunday morning we had a skim through The Simple Things and read through the article all about Brighton.  Mr Wolfe was featured in the article so we decided to give it a go.

It's just up the back, off Western Road, so nice and handy to get to.  It's very s but so nicely turned out.  The walls are all black chalk board and the menus are all written up on the wall, which is a nice touch.

The coffee was tasty and the gold teapots are fabulous! Wish I'd had tea rather than coffee. The tasty little cloud shortbread biscuit was not only extremely cute, but also very yummy.

Will definitely be visiting Mr Wolfe again!

Healthy Breakfast

After Bean and I came back from our wonderful weekend at Ragdale Hall Spa I decided that my breakfast choices are always a bit boring.  I either have instant porridge or toast and homemade jam.

I don't really have time for making a cooked breakfast or faffing around with anything that needs cooking from scratch but I do like to try different things.

I found that preparing a tasty summer yoghurt porridge is a really tasty alternative to normal porridge and goes really well with all kinds of fruit and nuts.

In the evening I mix up rolled porridge oats with some natural yogurt, milk and maple syrup/honey.  I pop this in the fridge over night and the oats soak up all the milk and yoghurt and go all soft.

Add seeds, nuts, fresh fruit or dried fruit, or try fruit yoghurt or smoothie - or really anything that takes your fancy really! It's fun to try different things.

Girls....

Are you into Girls?...not in that way?!

Girls the TV series.  It's brill.  It's the first TV series for ages that I've really enjoyed watching.  Admittedly I'm getting on this a bit late in the day, as I think they are actually already on series 4, but that doesn't make it any less brill.

It's so nice to have found a TV show that you can actually relate to.  Don't get me wrong, I loves SATC and The OC, but they sent you off into a fantasy world where real life issues were sensationalised and really, you just wanted to be as cool and skinny as them and have as much money.

They didn't really address every day issues.  Girls does (but not in a depressing way) in a light hearted, extremely well written way.

The characters are realistic and relatable and the relationships and issues are all so real.

How good is Lena Dunham at writing!? Soooo good, is the answer to that!

And as for not being afraid to have a good sex scene and get her boobs out - well good on that woman.

If you aren't already...get on Girls!

How to Relax

Calm App

Ever since coming back from Ragdale Hall I have realised that I can train my mind to calm down and not be do panicky and stressed.   I am quite a anxious person and once I get an idea in my head and start thinking about the consequences I find it really hard to get it out of my head.  It goes round and round and I work myself into a right tiz!

At Ragdale they had this brilliant mind machine that Bean and I had a load of giggles trying to beat!  The more you emptied your mind, the further the ball moved closer to the target circle at the end - flipping tricky!  But once you actually got to a state of meditation the ball raced to the end and it made you realise how fantastic it feels to clear your mind.

I wanted to be able to replicate this at home and downloaded the Calm App (for free) to my phone.

I had a stressful week this week and really needed to de-stress over the weekend.  After a fabulous day out with Bean on Sunday around Brighton I had the house to myself, ran myself a bath and treated myself to a body scrub and a session with the calm app.

I feel amazing!

Mind Machine at Ragdale Hall

Iced water with orange slices great for revitalising and rehydrating

Neom Candle - Lavender, Jasmine and Brazillian Rosewood - bought to my this weekend by Bean as a thank you gift for having her!

Homemade Body Scrub - Salt, Rosemary and Rosewood oil

When Bean Came to Stay

Outside florian florist on western road - gorgeous Mother's Day selections

What a lovely weekend I had.  I didn't really get to see much of G but I feel like I achieved loads.  It was such glorious weather I spent the day outside on Saturday in the garden tidying, fixing the shed roof, planting some bulbs and taking a load of junk to the dump.

It feels so good to get rid of loads of rubbish and make everything a bit tidier.  I then came inside, made a cake, tidied up and hoovered the whole house.  A real spring clean!

On Saturday evening Bean came to stay....so lovely to have her over.  We didn't do anything on Saturday night apart from chat and eat a tasty thai dinner that I made, but it was just nice to have her here.

On Sunday morning we tucked into a yummy breakfast that I had prepared of yogurt, oats, rhubarb and blueberries! Very healthy and tasty.

After checking out the fab article in this months Simple Things and doing some quick Google searches we went armed with a number of different new places we could try. 

The fantastic places we found were Mr Wolfe for a tasty coffee,  Dowse for some greetings cards, Sushi Garden for some lunch and Present (only opened this week) for a look at some gifts.

Cute sign that drew us in to have a look in Dowse Gallery and Shop

Fab interior of Mr Wolfe, Montpelier Place

Bean in Mr Wolfe reading the most recent Stylist Magazine

My gorgeous new scarf and jumper from COS

Tasty Sunday special - all this for only £6.50!

Sushi garden on Preston street, Brighton 

Spa Days

Oh Ragdale Hall, how marvellous you are!  Last month Bean and I took a fabulous trip up to the Midlands to finally celebrate her 30th Birthday in style.

Mum and Dad paid for us both to stay for 2 nights at the Hall for her 30th Birthday prezzie and I hope it was everything she wanted it to be.  I loved it! We had a fantastic superior room with dual aspect windows looking over the gorgeous lawns and pond.

I had a gorgeous Caribbean wrap, a full body massage, a hand and foot treatment and a fantastic eye brow thread.  What a relaxing weekend.

We literally wandered around the hall in our robes, drank champagne, lazed around reading our books and indulged in the outdoor swimming pool.

I've never been to a spa that wasn't just a pool with sauna and steam room, but Ragdale Hall has so much more than that, it even has showers that smell of mint.  I totally managed to relax and forget about everything outside of the little oasis of calm!

I think this perhaps may need to be an annual trip!

Sunrise out of our bedroom window

Breakfast that gets served to your room so you don't even need to get dressed or roll out of bed!

Amazingly comfy beds and super soft bed linen

Gorgeous corridors and one of the cafe areas

Feeling stunningly fresh faced after some of our treatments

Tasty Latte from the cafe

Sunset over the grounds

Tortilla Chips...literally

Super quick post today as I was super excited by these wikid tortilla chips! They were so super simple.

I had a packet of slightly stale tortilla wraps in the fridge and was about to throw them away when I came across a sweet version on Rachel Schultz blog.  

Slice up the wraps, rub a tiny bit of oil in and sprinkle with salt, place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 mins until crispy...et voila!